Classics overtake Phillip Island

The Phillip Island Classic is a not to be missed event on the Australian Motorsport sport calendar.

With a record number of entries and non-stop action packed racing, the event seemed to feel bigger than ever.

Overcast conditions for most of the weekend allowed for mostly cool temperatures. Unfortunately a lot of the races were cut short or suspended due to on-track incidents. That’s racing.

This 1985 Lola THL1-F1 unfortunately careered off Gardner straight and proceeded to hit the tyre barrier. This car was once raced (rather unsuccessfully) by Alan Jones. Without a doubt it will be back on the track asap.

The Group A cars as usual put on a show. #12 is the 1983 Jaguar XJ-S driven by Tony Pallas from New South Wales. The number of Interstate cars competing in this event is ever increasing. As is the interest from overseas competitors.

Jim Richards patron of this year’s event piloted his Championship winning JPS 635 CSi BMW, along with a host of familiar Group A machinery

Only at Phillip Island would you see a 1979 BMW M1 Procar. From Queensland this masterpiece is from the Bowden collection and was driven by Christopher and Ecurie Bowden.

After a painstaking restoration, this famous M1 is now back to its original 1979/1980 Japanese Group 4 configuration. With an extensive race history and success in Japan it was a thrill to see it competing.

The glorious shape of this Porsche 906 from 1966 captured our lens immediately. The Porsche 906 was the last street-legal racing car from Porsche. Released in January 1966 and 50 examples were produced.

SCCA E Production 1958 Kilpatrick Porsche Speedster. Amazingly this car has raced 33 straight years in SCCA racing and 55,000 race miles in America. Recently its been a fixture in International motoring events with Ernie Nagamatsu behind the wheel.

One of our favourites was this Semi-lightweight series one 3.8 litre Jaguar E-type campaigned by Rhea Sautter. With a comprehensive race history in America and endurance race history in Europe it was wonderful to see on the Phillip Island circuit.

Close racing was seen in most of the categories with some exciting battles throughout the field.

Two regularity divisions also featured with an amazing array of cars competing from the 1920’s to the 2000’s.

The countdown has just started for the Phillip Island classic’s return in 2017.

Thanks so much for reading.

Watch this space.

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